Why Buy Fair Trade?

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The fair trade logo signifies a way to shop for a better world. By buying products bearing the Fair Trade Certified label when possible, you're voting with your dollars to help improve lives for farmers and farm workers throughout the developing world. Fair Trade Certified products include coffee, tea, chocolate, fruit, rice, sugar, herbs, spices, and even flowers.

The fair trade logo indicates that farmers are paid a living wage for their crops, workers are treated with dignity, and small landholders are part of a co-op or other democratic organization.

Strong Growth, Smart Business

Through fair trade certification, importers and retailers pay a premium price to farmers and farm workers who commit to grow and produce goods in accordance with rigorous standards. Those standards guarantee worker rights, community empowerment, and environmental sustainability.

Through sales of Fair Trade Certified products in the United States—which hit an estimated $1 billion in 2007—TransFair USA has delivered more than $100 million in additional revenue to farmers and farm workers in rural communities throughout the developing world. This number is steadily rising.

When small-scale farmers are paid a living wage, they can afford to feed their families, send their children to school instead of to the fields, and obtain healthcare. Many farmer co-ops use their income to establish community health clinics or help growers transition to certified organic farming.

For People and the Planet

A Fair Trade Certified label on a product ensures that a fair price is paid for the product, fair wages are paid to the workers producing the item, and monies are invested in the communities. Fair trade certification also means that farmers use sustainable farming practices, including composting, terracing, and reforestation. Growers use nonchemical alternatives to pesticides.

More than 80 percent of Fair Trade Certified coffee is shade grown. “Shade grown” refers to crops, usually coffee and cacao, cultivated in their natural habitats under the canopy of tall trees, allowing for less fertilizer use and more biodiversity.

Watch and Learn

Check out the video to learn how one organization called Alaffia is using fair trade to help their community.